


sunrise chasers

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Graduation, M/M, Slight post-canon, Third Year Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kozume Kenma graduates, and photographs are taken as the seasons change.</p><p>(For KenHina Week 2016, Day 4: "Firsts")</p>
            </blockquote>





	sunrise chasers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maesilju](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maesilju/gifts).



> I didn't want to let KenHina week go by without writing something, however small :)  
> This is for Hazel, who asked for either third years or post-canon KenHina, and being me, I combined it with today's prompt and mashed it all up ☀ hope you like it!

 

 

_click._

 

At this distance, he can't make out much. But there's no missing that shock of tangerine-wild hair, that stature (or, in truth, lack thereof), that _voice_ , raised in some premonition of victory -

It peals out like summer, a brightening that breaks, sudden and sunlit and impossible over the horizon. _Horizons._ He feels like he's seen a few, now.

And he knows it can't be captured, not in a photo, nor in his capacious memory where, no matter how he tries, it never quite lives up to the real thing; always, somehow, little more than a pale imitation that echoes in his mind at the strangest, most random of moments.

The soft crinkle of an empty sweet wrapper beneath one foot draws him back to the present. There are so many people. The Sendai Gymnasium stands are filling up behind him.

He melts into the swell of the crowd. Lowers his arm slowly, slides his phone back into his pocket.

His palm, devoid of the familiar weight, is butterfly-light, fingers flexing free as if he's letting go of something.

 

 

 

_(but summer couldn't last - )_

 

" _Chibi-chan_ ," says Kuroo Tetsurou, first year university student and _uninvited spectator_ to the _Harukou_ Nationals in Tokyo, with a _thoughtful_ kind of smirk on his face, and he stops there, lips pursed for such a long time that Kenma knows he's doing it just to be annoying. So he, too, holds his tongue and refuses to rise to the bait; it's easy for him to keep the silence, a pesky fact of their friendship that Kuroo's just as well aware of.

Kenma raises a towel to his forehead, wipes off his brow as he takes a long, unhurried drink from his bottle, and pretends to be fascinated by the peeling paint on the side of a locker.

Kuroo lets out a breath like a dramatic sigh.

"He's growing at an alarming rate, isn't he?"

Kenma shoots him a measured look. "Yeah."

"You were lucky to beat Karasuno today," Kuroo adds, and because it's _Kuro_ , Kenma takes this truth served cool and unadorned. Sliced this way, it's laced with something that tastes a little like a sunset.

When it fades to dark, Kenma answers Kuroo's smile with a small, understanding one of his own.

"Well," he says, with a shrug, "there won't be a next time."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_click._

 

And Hinata Shouyou had thrown one exuberant arm round him, pressed the shutter button before Kenma could react, retreat behind safety nets and half-turned faces in the hustle and bustle of the carpark.

Of course, this _would be_ how he's immortalised in pixels after all this time: silhouetted against buses and blue skies, startled, pink in the cheeks, still flushed from the game they've just played and won. _Lost._ Depending on perspective. It's hard for Kenma to figure out where _they_ stand, if he tries to approach it in his usual logical fashion.

So he exhales slowly instead, mumbles, eloquent, " _Shouyou._ "

The autumn breeze carries his admonition away like a fond reminiscence. His voice, cracking slightly, sounds just like the leaves that go _crunch_ under your sneakers.

He looks away, then thinks better of it.

He looks at Hinata, who, for some perfectly imperfect, inexplicable reason, is smiling and tearing up at the same time, fit to _burst_ with something he can't contain, and Kenma, _somehow_ , thinks he knows what it is; can't put a name to it, but he feels it stir inside his chest, a tightly-clenched warmth that's so sweet that everything tingles.

He wants to look anywhere else and nowhere else all at once.

 _After all this time._ He's got his public face down to a science. Knows just how to angle his gaze, dip his head so that he can still see everything around him while putting up his guards, his long hair a familiar cordon round his line of sight. He has perfected it to a fine point, _here and now_ , in his third year, when a _captaincy_ he never expected means he has to look _up_ from time to time, exchange pleasantries with strangers and shake their hands.

Like anything else that needs practice, it had grown easier.

Hinata had never been one of those things that needed practice.

(He'd just - _been_ , one day - and Kenma's phone had not known a moment's peace afterwards.)

"Well, we _had_ to take one _last_ picture," declares Hinata, with a grin that won't take _no_ for an answer, even retrospectively. "Before you graduate! And leave! And - and - start playing with _other people_!"

He's leaning forward at an improbable angle on the tarmac, eyes wide and glistening and fists clenched by his side, words tripping off his tongue in an almost _accusatory_ manner - _how dare you play with other people_ -

It's so _Shouyou_ , and Kenma tries not to blink. He does what he does best, takes it all in. Watches.

 _Listens,_ rather. This is their swansong, the cadences of their open-ended future calling.

He hitches his satchel up his shoulder, and for Hinata, he finds a genuine smile through the bone-tired exhaustion of today. He feels it spread on his face, too late for the camera but in time, he hopes, for the memories.

"Have we even taken any pictures together before?" he asks.

Hinata rocks back on his feet, frowns like it's Kenma's fault. "You never want to."

And Kenma, for once, has no defense against his culpability, but then Hinata laughs again and suddenly they're in a hug and Kenma swears he's about to get the life squeezed out of him, and this would be, he thinks, an embarrassing but not entirely unpleasant way to go.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Graduation is a shower of picturesque cherry blossoms, like something out of the movies, and a dew-bright scent in the air.

Tora cries, _ugly cries_ with loud sniffling, although he denies it point-blank. Fukunaga says _thank you for everything_ , and the first years nearly collapse of shock as he bows.

Kenma, diploma in hand, has nothing more to say to his team, so he pats Shibayama on the shoulder, dodges a flying tackle from Lev and accepts a handshake from Coach Nekomata for the road.

 _Well,_ he thinks, as he glances out the open door. _This is it, I guess._

He takes out his phone. There's an _emoji_ -filled text on it that he keeps rereading. He wonders how long Hinata spent composing it. He wonders if he'd punched it out, sleepless, like Kenma last night. Staring at the ceiling. Thinking of tomorrows, and all his reasons for looking ahead, facing forward.

_We did what we promised each other, didn't we? We did it. We. We. You and me._

And he wonders what, _how_ , to reply - thinks to take a picture of the chaos in the gym, of the _sakura_ and the falling leaves, of _anything_ , really, that might sum up today in words he does not have, and then someone bumps his elbow and his finger slips and suddenly the _front-facing camera_ comes on and he's looking at _himself_ , _horror of horrors_ -

Caught unawares in a half-smile, the spring-green trees behind him, clad in all their finery, Kenma blinks, and stares.

There's a stray strand of hair across his cheek, blown loose by the breeze; he thinks, he will never get rid of those eyebags, or those stress lines in his brow, no doubt put there by his team and a certain _Haiba_ in particular.

He remembers Hinata's complaint, wonders if he might appreciate a picture like this -

But right on the verge of summoning up all his courage, snapping it, _a picture of himself, Kozume Kenma, high school graduate!_ , of all things, the screen's disrupted by another incoming message, and it's from Hinata.

Kenma lowers his phone, a faint, blushing warmth creeping up on the back of his reddening neck.

> _i never sent u this pic!!! HERE U GO  
>  _ _Attachment: harukounationalswithkenma.jpg_

Steeling his resolve, Kenma clicks off his camera.

He looks up, at the cloudy skies, beyond the power lines and out to the mountains he knows are there, somewhere in the distance. They'll be covered in green too, this time of year. He remembers Miyagi in the spring. He knows it is striking, the kind of place that leaves its mark on you, in a different way from Nerima.

He makes another silent promise to himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Kenma!" comes the shout down the corridor, and Kenma winces reflexively, squinches his shoulders tight at the sound of his _name_ , called out like this, so blinding in this narrow space. "I knew it was you!"

"You knew it was me because I texted you to say I was coming," says Kenma, deadpan as he turns around.

" _No,_ I mean, I knew _knew_! I _sensed_ you were watching!"

This makes absolutely no sense, but then Hinata's launching himself at him and Kenma has to brace himself to keep from being knocked off his feet, and his objection flies right out of his mind.

"You played well," Kenma manages to say, as he extricates himself from Hinata's chokehold.

"Yeah?" Hinata beams with pride.

"Yeah," says Kenma. "Congratulations."

Hinata's all sweaty. He's still wearing his No. 10 jersey, and his hair is mussed, one kneeguard slightly askew, like he's nearly tripped over himself sprinting down the hallways. Looking for Kenma.

And it makes Kenma's heart skip a beat, swell, alternately, to know - to never quite understand, and yet, to be _okay_ , to take _this_ for what it is -

(That for him, Hinata would run to the sun and back.)

"Want to join us for dinner? Yamaguchi's treating the team to _yakiniku!_ " Hinata asks hopefully, bouncing back and forth on his heels.

Kenma shakes his head. "I can't. I have to catch the train back to Tokyo before it's too late… I've got classes at uni tomorrow morning."

"Oh," Hinata murmurs, face falling.

"But… hey, Shouyou."

Kenma takes out his phone. Reaches out, takes Hinata by the wrist, _gross and sweaty and all_ , and tugs him closer - stretches his arm forward and flips on his camera -

"Are we taking a _photo_?" Hinata _squeaks_ in delight.

This close, he is _warm_ ; this close, he definitely smells like he needs a shower, but Kenma doesn't shy away.

"Last time, you said _one last photo_. Remember?"

Hinata nods vigorously. "Yeah, I remember!"

Kenma positions the phone, tries to get them both in the frame, although, truth be told, no frame would possibly be big enough to contain Hinata's glow. He hasn't done this an awful lot - or, even, _at all_ \- but Hinata, evidently an expert, reaches out and straightens his grip; their hands fit easily over each other's, the touch as natural as breathing, as quietly, quietly groundbreaking as spring's first thaw.

The evening sun spills through the high windows. Kenma thinks, in this light, he doesn't look half bad.

"Well - " he starts, pauses for a breath to collect himself, as he gazes, thoughtful, into the camera. Hinata's pulse is a steady beat on the back of his hand.

"I don't think that was our _last_ photo. I think it was our first," he says.

Hinata, at his side, breaks into another of those radiant grins and scoots in even _closer_ so they're cheek to cheek, and Kenma thinks, _I'm going to need a long shower too_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The summer won't last. This, he knows - he's learned -

But that's okay, because some things aren't meant to be _kept_ forever, safe and unchanging, and some things they'll always have anyway.

Kenma smiles. He reaches for the shutter button.

 

 

_click._

 

 


End file.
